Big Brother

Brief.

In September 2010, the Outside Organisation won the prestigious Channel 5 account, marking the first time a terrestrial broadcaster had outsourced its entire press & publicity operation to an external agency. As one of the key shows in a revamped C5 schedule, Outside were charged with building excitement and anticipation around the return of Big Brother, the world’s most successful reality series, to British TV.  It started with the three-week run of Celebrity Big Brother, launching in August 2011.

Strategy.

Over a period of six months, the Outside Organisation worked hand-in-hand with the in-house Channel 5 commissioning team and Big Brother producers Endemol to relaunch the show on its new home on Channel 5.

We were involved in planning and executing the press campaign as well as advising on casting decisions to maximise media interest. Following an announcement about the return of the show to British TV screens placed exclusively with MediaGuardian, Outside reached out to a broad cross-section of media from tabloids to broadsheet to build anticipation.

Exclusive pictures of the new look Big Brother house – the costliest ever – attracted great interest across the board. Outside also engaged influential opinion formers with large numbers of followers on social media platforms with a special ‘twitterati’ afternoon on site at the Big Brother. This seeded unique images of the new Big Brother house across the internet, generating further media coverage and building anticipation online.

A press launch later that week at the Big Brother house, hosted by Northern & Shell Chairman Richard Desmond, attracted correspondents from every national newspaper. Once Celebrity Big Brother launched, Outside maintained media interest with an on-site press team feeding out newslines to the media throughout the entire run of the show.

Results.

Outside’s press campaign – which generated widespread media interest across tabloid, broadsheet and broadcast media – helped the launch show for Celebrity Big Brother attract 5.3m viewers to Channel 5 – the channel’s highest rating show for the last ten years. Viewing figures remained strong throughout the entire series, performing way ahead of the previous average for its timeslot.